Vissi d'arte Episode 2

Episode 2

Tanya's news shocks Nicholas.

To read more please download the first episode free from this LINK. I would appreciate your comments on what you read. Thank you.

Episode 1 of Vissi d'arte

Episode 1

‘Of love bereft,this life is torment.’
The Force of Destiny – Verdi

January 1968

Snow crystals hit his face as he carried his suitcases up the icy footpath. Only the thought that he might be in Australia in a few weeks cheered him. The blizzard almost obscured the elegant house he had inherited, but did not want. Kew, with its botanical gardens and tree lined streets was too suburban for Nicholas. He preferred the frenetic atmosphere of Chelsea where he had lived for seven years. Tomorrow someone else would take his place in the crowded attic flat.
He stood outside the gate, daunted by the responsibilities facing him. The house had belonged to his family since 1890, and to sell it seemed wrong. Gusts of wind caught the hem of his coat, hooking it over the jagged end of a fallen branch. Disentangling himself, he walked up the path, and opened the front door. It was the first time he had been in the house alone. He took a deep breath, expecting to smell the Chanel perfume his grandmother had worn, but her scent had not lingered. Unprepared for the stale air, he felt bereft. He dumped his cases at the foot of the staircase.
Letters scattered over the black and white tiled hallway raised his hopes. He looked for an airmail envelope, but there was nothing from Australia. Most of the others were electricity and gas bills addressed to his grandmother. His letters were from people in the drama company, begging him to return. He shook his head. Working with Sally would be unbearable.


To read more please download the first episode free from this LINK. I would appreciate your comments on what you read. Thank you.

Blurb for Vissi d'arte

A Novel about Love and Music

Nicholas is an ambitious young opera director. Natasha, Jacqueline, Max, Deborah and Richard are talented young singers at a fiercely competitive opera school. Harriet has a secret. Vivien is an inquisitive journalist.

Set in Australia in the sixties, a time of moral and cultural change, Vissi d’arte is about the ambitions and relationships between students and staff at an opera school in Melbourne. Politically, this period of Australian history was turbulent. Passions over conscription and the Vietnam War were intense. The opposing views of the characters cause explosive quarrels. Further conflict occurs when Nicholas, the new director from London, wants to update popular operas and put on performances by modern composers. His ideas are resisted by the founder of the theatre, Harriet Shaw, who is a traditionalist.

Vissi d’arte contains doomed love stories and a mystery, which is interwoven through the novel. In 1930 Harriet gave up her opera career in London. For years she has lied about the reason. Nicholas’s girlfriend, Vivien, starts investigating.

Episode 1 tomorrow.

Trying to find an agent/publisher

What a catch 22 situation. Writers are suppoed to only approach one agent at a time. At that rate a writer would only be able to send out about three proposals a year. I've sent out lots of enquiry letters. One page long. Some agents have taken six week to send out standard rejection letters. How long s=does it take to read and make a decision on a 1 page letter? So I'm abandoning hope and going the blog route instead. I'll be posting my query letters and short episodes of my novels Vissi d'arte, Eumeralla and The Doll Collection.